Brown-John: Jobs and the new reality

It may have been 19th Century Cuban poet and patriot Jose Marti who, apparently, observed that a people who lose their political liberty may fight to regain it, but a people who have lost their economic liberty are thereafter forever lost.

City Desk

Updated: November 26, 2013

An emotional Leamington Mayor John Paterson announces on Thursday November 14, 2013 the closing of Heinz Canada next year on (JASON KRYK/The Windsor Star)

It may have been 19th Century Cuban poet and patriot Jose Marti who, apparently, observed that a people who lose their political liberty may fight to regain it, but a people who have lost their economic liberty are thereafter forever lost.

One had a taste of this observation, as emotion welled in Leamington Mayor John Paterson’s visage as he responded to an announcement of the closing of the H J. Heinz plant. The reality of how little real power is available to elected political leaders probably had just hit him in the guts.

Lloyd Brown-John (The Windsor Star)

Paterson’s frustration was echoed by Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne who, it is said, had advance warning of the closing of the Heinz plant, but was powerless to do anything about it.

Ontario has lost an estimated 300,000 manufacturing jobs over the past few years.

It was of less note, but equally devastating for another small community — Tilbury. Worthington Cylinders of Canada Corp., announced it would close its Tilbury industrial gas cylinder manufacturing plant and layoff 100 employees.

Those terminated were offered sops of opportunity to apply for work at one of the company’s plants in Ohio or Michigan. The company operates 82 plants in 11 countries.

Of course, employees of Heinz in Leamington and Worthington in Tilbury will all look forward to a dismal Christmas.

What is so vividly apparent in this ongoing drain of manufacturing jobs from Ontario is that our elected politicians are often virtually taken by surprise by these economic announcements and they are, in practise, helpless to respond in any manner — either to demand, cajole or beg these impersonal foreign-owned companies to change their anonymous corporate minds.

Take the Heinz deal. In February 2013 Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway company, in partnership with 3G Capital of Brazil, paid $23.3 billion for H.J. Heinz. Buffet, by the way, has just purchased a major $3.45 billion stake in Exon-Mobile.

3G Capital of Brazil is largely owned by Brazil’s wealthiest billionaire Jose Paulo Lemann. Lemann came into prominence in 2008 when he managed a merger of beer giant Anheuser Busch with the Belgian beer giant InBev NV. In 2010, he was responsible for the leveraged buyout of Burger King Holdings from a private based equity wealth fund.

Those involved in these massive corporate takeovers have no interest whatsoever in the human consequences of the games they play. Warren Buffett and Lemann are all multibillionaires. Would they seriously care about the consequences of their game playing upon, for example, a tomato farmer in rural Leamington? Not likely. Indeed, odds are they have no idea of where Leamington is located or why it even exists.

And would any self-respecting billionaire give a solitary owl’s hoot about some obscure provincial premier or, even for that matter, a posturing prime minister.

Increasingly, American capitalism is being eroded by emergence of what is termed “distorporatism.” New corporate ownership structures known as Master Limited Partnerships (MLP) are sweeping America’s corporate world distorting, it is claimed, real capitalism.

MLPs are “pass-through companies” — conglomerates which accumulate capital and have few shareholders. Two-thirds of new, major companies in America are MLPs. Very little earnings are retained and companies pay out, more or less, what they take in each year to their limited ownership.

Elected politicians are largely inconsequential and, in America, politicians have largely been responsible for the rapid emergence of MLPs.

For places like Tilbury, Leamington and Ontario the tears and whimperings of our elected politicians are shed with indifference because the game is the bottom line, wealth accumulation just, it would appear, for fun!

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